1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for reliably and easily archiving CAD data over a long term.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, even when CAD data which has been created as product data by use of a CAD system are present, it has been a general practice to output such CAD data in the form of drawings in order to manufacture a product and to provide support over the service life of the product. Further, as a measure against potential product liability and patent related lawsuits, the drawings have been archived as originals of the product data.
Meanwhile, recent progress in CAD systems enables the manufacturing of products through direct use of CAD data, and in some cases, such conversion of CAD data to drawings is performed only for the purpose of archiving, separately from development and production of the product. If a method of reliably reproducing CAD data is established in the future, it will become possible to store CAD data as originals of product data.
However, long-term archiving of CAD data involves a problem in that the structure and/or contents of CAD data basically depends on the CAD program that created the CAD data. CAD programs are restricted in terms of operation environment (hardware, OS, etc.), and CAD programs themselves are frequently upgraded. Further, in some cases, compatibility with old programs is not guaranteed and required operation environments are changed. Therefore, there is no guarantee that stored CAD data can be reliably reproduced in the future.
Accordingly, when CAD data is stored over a long term, in addition to CAD data to be stored, a system on which a corresponding CAD program can operate; i.e., a CAD program, hardware, OS, etc., must be stored. However, this is not practical when the life cycle of a product is as long as 20 to 40 years.
Further, another possibility is that when a CAD program, hardware, OS, or the like is drastically changed, CAD data are converted into data which match the new CAD program, hardware, OS, or the like. However, in this case, data conversion must be performed every few years, and the reliability of the conversion must be confirmed each time. This is a major problem in terms of the amount of labor required.
Further, in such a case, at appropriate intervals determined on the basis of life of hardware, the CAD program must be checked and modified or upgraded in order to ensure that the CAD program properly operates on the hardware at the time such checking is done. However, prerequisite to this, a company which can create and maintain such a CAD program needs to exist. When past instances are considered, it is found that this solution is not realistic when the life cycle of a product is as long as 20 to 40 years.
In view of the foregoing, one objective of the present invention is to provide a method and system for archiving of CAD data over a long term in a stable, reliable, and easy manner.
The present invention provides a method for archiving CAD data for long-term use, the method comprise the following steps: storing over a long term a rule which is a modification of a standard rule which can convert various types of CAD data created by a various types of CAD programs to text-based standard data, the rule being determined such that among items contained in the various types of CAD data, predetermined items relating to the contents to be archived over a long term are selected, and data obtained through conversion of the selected items is treated as long-term archived data, and the rule containing at least one procedure for designing a converter which converts the selected data items to the long-term archived data, and a procedure for designing a viewer which enables display units of various computer systems to display the converted long-term archived data; creating a converter on the basis of the rule, the converter operating on a selected computer system in order to convert selected CAD data to long-term archived data; and converting selected CAD data to long-term archived data by use of the converter and archiving the long-term archived data over a long term.
The method may further comprise the steps of: creating a viewer on the basis of the rule, the viewer enabling a display unit of a selected computer system to display the converted long-term archived data which has undergone long term archiving; and displaying the long-term archived data on the display unit of the selected computer system by use of the viewer.
The method may further comprise the step of: performing verification through comparison between the CAD data and the long-term archived data converted from the CAD data to thereby confirm the fidelity of the long-term archived data.
The rule may contain a procedure for designing a verification program for performing verification through comparison between the CAD data and the long-term archived data converted from the CAD data, as well as a procedure for performing verification.
The selected items may include items regarding shape, dimensions, notes, and tolerances.
The standard rule may be that specified under ISO 10303.
The present invention further provides a long-term archiving system for archiving over a long term various types of CAD data created by various types of CAD programs, the system comprising: a rule which is a modification of a standard rule which can convert various types of CAD data created by various types of CAD programs to text-based standard data, the rule being determined such that among items contained in the various types of CAD data, items relating to contents to be archived over a long term are selected, and data obtained through conversion of the selected items are treated as long-term archived data, and the rule containing at least one procedure for designing a converter which converts the selected data items to the long-term archived data, and a procedure for designing a viewer which enables display units of various computer systems to display the converted long-term archived data; long-term archived data acceptance means for accepting, as registration data, long-term archived data which has been converted from selected CAD data by use of a converter created on the basis of the rule and which has been confirmed to be the same as the original; long-term archiving means for storing over a long term the long-term archived data, which have been stored as registration data, together with registration information; and long-term archived data output means which, in response to a request, outputs the registration data stored in the long-term archiving means while authenticating that the output registration data are original.
The rule may contain a procedure for designing a verification program for performing verification through comparison between the CAD data and the long-term archived data converted from the CAD data to thereby confirm the fidelity, as well as a procedure for performing verification.
The system may further comprise rule storage means for storing the rule over a long term and for enabling a user to utilize the rule when necessary.
The system may further comprise perusal acceptance means for enabling a user to peruse the long-term archived data over a network.
The perusal acceptance means may provide the converter, the viewer, and/or the verification program, in response to a request.
The long-term archived data acceptance means may accept registration of long-term archived data via a network.
The selected items may include items regarding shape, dimensions, notes, and tolerances.
The standard rule may be that specified under ISO 10303.
As described above, the present invention can establish a form of storage suitable for long-term archiving of CAD data and a process for creating long-term archived data, as well as a archiving system for long-term archived data.
Further, the present invention realizes a CAD-data long-term archiving system as a system for archiving long-term archived data over a long term.